BEIRUT — Sorry for the week­end silence. I meant to write yes­ter­day, but with the events in Qana and the riot/demonstration in Beirut, as well as me run­ning around try­ing to find a dri­ver and a way to file when I’m down in Tyre, time got away from me. I also, sorry to say, had to take a lit­tle break.
Beirut is split and strange. I have no real data on this, but after a week away from Beirut, it feels like it’s whistling past the grave­yard. The city is full of refugees from the south and Dahiyeh, but it’s not been hit in sevveral days. (This is before the 48-hour cease fire has gone into effect.) On my street, which is nor­mally very quiet, by early evening, there are dozens of peo­ple I’ve never seen before hang­ing out on bal­conies, milling about in the street. Chil­dren are much more com­mon as are women dressed in con­ser­v­a­tive hijabs. The south has come to the city, and the city has gone to the moun­tains. Beirut has become much more Shi’ite in the past three weeks.
The infra­struc­ture sit­u­a­tion is iffy. Inter­net is iffy, power is dom­i­nated by rolling black­outs. We still have water and taxis are still run­ning. I hear there’s still a bit of night-life, but I was only here for two days and didn’t feel much like going out.
My week in the south was instruc­tive. Most roads south of Tyre are free-fire zones. Peo­ple are dying every day and Lebanese Red Cross can’t get to the bod­ies. The mas­sacre in Qana was one of the most hor­ri­ble things I’ve ever seen but if this cease-fire doesn’t hold, we may see more of these things.
Some recent sto­ries:
* “A piece on the grow­ing anti-Americanism in Lebanon”:http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/28/MNG2RK79R81.DTL&hw=allbritton&sn=002&sc=409
* “An analy­sis of the polit­i­cal map in Beir­iut — and what Sin­iora must do”:http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/30/INGA0K5COQ1.DTL&hw=allbritton&sn=001&sc=1000
I head back to Tyre today after I buy a new lap­top that will work with my sat phone to file. With a 48-hour win­dow to move with­out air strikes, this is an oppor­tu­nity to see get to some of these vil­lages that we’ve not been able to get to.